Train composition

[newmilton]

This is a topic that could go in either the national or international forums; but I was standing on New Street Station yesterday trying to guess where Coach D of my train was going to be (near the back as it turned out), and wondering why we can't have in this country what they do in the continent, i.e. either posters or electronic screens displaying the make-up of each train and where to stand on the platform, at least for long distance trains?

BR tried it briefly with different coloured zones along the platform, but even then you didn't know where to stand until someone announced it. And just occasionally you may be told which end of the train 1st Class will be - usually as the train is pulling in, causing a mad rush if people have guessed wrongly. Surely train composition doesn't vary that much from day to day, and the information must exist?

(Mind you, I do recall asking in Geneva on one occasion whether the Paris TGV was usually formed of one or two sets, to get the reply - in French of course, which I was speaking - 'There is no usual'.)

 

[duesselmartin]

We curse those platform diagrams here in Germany as the train is bound to come in reverse order

 

[Hophead]

From memory, Great Western at Reading are pretty consistent in identifying on the PIS which end has 1st Class (although that only goes part-way towards locating your Coach D example, of course).

 

[Bletchleyite]

We curse those platform diagrams here in Germany as the train is bound to come in reverse order

Have DB lost the ability to put up "umgekehrte Wagenreihung" on the PIS?

I note that SBB guards appear to enter the formation on their ticket machine. Something like that could be implemented in the UK given that we have networked PIS at most stations.

VTWC have added numbered zones and do it in text form, would be nice if it was Euston style diagrams. They also have posters (given that there are only 4 possible formations of VTWC train - 9 car Pendo, 11 car Pendo, 5 car Voyager, 10 car Voyager, always planned to be with 1st at the London end - this is not an impractical way of doing it).

The BR coloured zones were used on the WCML including on the PIS.

 

[43096]

The SBB system in Switzerland works really well - I have never seen a train composition display not match reality.

Once saw a display at Winterthur showing 10 coaches+loco+2 coaches+loco. Can't be right, I thought. It was right, of course... Set came in formed of 10 double-deck IC2000, Class 460, 2 single deck EW IV, Class 460.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

Most large Indian stations have above platform displays showing the position of individual coaches. They usually seem to get it right although I have had to walk briskly along the platform from one end of a 24 coach train to the other.

If it can be done in India with their vastly underinvested railway surely it can be done in the UK.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The SBB system in Switzerland works really well - I have never seen a train composition display not match reality.

Once saw a display at Winterthur showing 10 coaches+loco+2 coaches+loco. Can't be right, I thought. It was right, of course... Set came in formed of 10 double-deck IC2000, Class 460, 2 single deck EW IV, Class 460.

I have seen it wrong, but on those occasions have suspected that that station didn't have a flap for the actual formation (on the old PIS) so put up the closest it had.

 

[Groningen]

In the Netherlands we have signs that tell the driver where to stop. Problem is that you do not know how long the train is. If it is a Koploper it is always 3; VIRM always 4. No number and the train stops there means that the train is long.

Example on a station Rotterdam Centraal to Hoek van Holland (Maassluis West):

 

[Gordon]

Virgin does it on the East Coast, with boards on the platform adjacent to where the relevant doors will be. If it is running in reverese formation they usually announce it.


.

In Switzerland there are two versions of the system,

1) the above your head display screens (manual boards when I first got to know SBB in 1973) showing where 1st and 2nd class will be in reference to the lettered platform sectors (usually A - D), and backed up by the verbal train announcements

2) the 'zugbildung' posters on the platform



.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

We curse those platform diagrams here in Germany as the train is bound to come in reverse order

Yes I have been confused by the trains sometimes in Germany, mainly on the Koln / Dresden route for some reason. Still I really like the ICE trains. They are good even in 2nd class.

 

[newmilton]

Even the French sometimes get it wrong. Just had a mad rush up the platform at Le Mans when the Paris train came in as two sets not one as announced, and coach 10 ended up rather further up the platform than indicated!

 

[Groningen]

Maybe they had a lot of reservations that forced a second train. That is something different than a train where the coaches are not in the announced order.